Rebels on a lightning advance through Syria said on Saturday, December 7, they have begun to encircle Damascus as government forces denied they had withdrawn from areas near the capital.
"Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital, Damascus," said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive. The defence ministry flatly denied the army had fled positions near the city. "There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces, present in all areas of the Damascus countryside, have withdrawn," it said.
Earlier, a UK-based war monitor and Abdel Ghani said rebels were within 20 kilometers of Damascus as government forces fall back in the face of the offensive gathering even more momentum.
The Syria Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had ceded more key ground, losing control of all of southern Daraa province and evacuating posts in Quneitra, near the Israel-annexed Golan Heights. The monitor said government forces were also pulling out of towns as little as 10 kilometers from Damascus.
The leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group told fighters to prepare to take the capital Damascus. "Damascus awaits you," said HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in a statement addressed to rebel fighters on Telegram, using his real name instead of his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
Abdel Ghani said earlier that "our forces were able to control the Saasaa (security) branch in the Damascus countryside. The advance towards the capital continues."
Air strikes and shelling by government forces and their ally Russia killed at least seven civilians near the city of Homs, as the army sought to slow the rebel advance there.
As the rebels seize more territory, they have also sought to reassure those living in areas now under their control.
Minorities have often been persecuted during Syria's long conflict, and HTS's precursor Al-Nusra Front, which was linked to Al-Qaeda, launched deadly attacks on Assad's Alawite minority in Homs early in the war.
The army said it was redeploying in the south where the Observatory said the government had lost control of Daraa province and the key city of the same name, cradle of the 2011 uprising.
In the central Homs area, a key stepping stone to the seat of power in Damascus, the Observatory said government forces had brought "large reinforcements" and stopped the rebel advance.
An army statement carried by state media said government forces were "redeploying and repositioning" in the southern provinces of Sweida and Daraa. But both the Observatory and rebels said that government forces no longer controlled any of Daraa province.
In nearby Quneitra province, government forces "evacuated military and security positions while civil servants left their posts, leaving the province... free of the Syrian army for the very first time", said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
Daraa and Quneitra are near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, where Israel said it was boosting its troop presence, and Jordan, which late Friday urged its citizens to leave Syria "as soon as possible."
Iraq allowed hundreds of troops from the Syrian army, some of them wounded, amid the offensive, according to two Iraqi security sources speaking to Agence France-Presse.
The soldiers from President Bashar al-Assad's forces "have fled the front lines" and entered Iraq through the Al-Qaim border crossing, said one senior security official, adding that "the wounded have been hospitalized" in the area. A second source gave a figure of 2,000 soldiers, including officers, who entered Iraq with the authorities' permission.
Russia and the United States, which has troops in Syria as part of an anti-jihadist coalition, have also advised their nationals to leave. By Friday, the government was also pulling its troops out of Deir Ezzor in the east, with Kurdish-led forces saying they had moved in.
The top diplomats from Iran, Turkey and Russia met in Qatar on Saturday for talks on Syria. After the discussions in Doha with his Russian and Turkish counterparts, Sergei Lavrov and Hakan Fidan, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the parties agreed on the initiation of "political dialogue between the Syrian government and the legitimate opposition groups."
The three countries have been involved since 2017 in the so-called Astana format talks seeking a political settlement in Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Syria must not be allowed to fall into the hands of "terrorist" rebels fighting the forces of Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad.
"It's inadmissible to allow the terrorist group to take control of the lands in violation of agreements which exist, starting with the UN Security Council Resolution 2254 which strongly reiterated sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of the Syrian Arab Republic," Lavrov said, referring to a 2015 UN resolution for a political settlement in Syria.
Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, said the world had been "surprised" by the speed of the rebel advance and called for "a political framework" to prevent violence from spiraling.
He also said Assad had failed to "start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people."
Ahead of the meeting, Araghchi said he had "very frank and direct" talks with his Turkish counterpart and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.